Another reason I love to go next door is to see Ms. Chambers’ magazines. Ms. Chambers is a teacher. She has many National Geographic magazines. I like the ones with the bare breasted African women on the cover. I wish I was in Africa. I wish I could live with these women in Africa. How come these men don’t want to do it all the time with these women?

Sometimes the church sisters ask me to undo their brassieres for them and I get to see their breasts. They are big and they hang down. They are not nice like the African women’s breasts. Ruth Anne and Peter-Gay show me their breasts sometimes too. I nag them every day to show me them.

Ruth-Anne is Sister Cordell’s grand-daughter and Peter-Gay is Sister Lindo’s daughter. Ruth-Anne is 16 and Peter-Gay is 15. I am 7. We are the only children on the church commune. Sometimes they come and help me with my school work.

“Ok Steve, mi will show you if you show me your own first.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Thunder roll and break my neck. Ruth-Anne stand up by the door and tell us when big people coming.”

I am nervous and excited at the same time. If grownups know what me and Peter-Gay are doing, they will beat all 3 of us with the bamboo cane or the leather strap, or tree branches until all of us dead. Peter-Gay lifts up her T-shirt. She raises her bra over her breast. My 7 year old teapot is trying to break through my shorts.

“Somebody is coming.”

This is it, we dead now. This is the worst thing we could be doing. Peter-Gay pulls down her brassier and shirt and pretends she’s helping with my school work.

“Ok, let’s practice your 2x table again. Two times two?

“Four.”

“Two times three?”

“Six.”

“She went back downstairs, it was Sister Rose.” Ruth-Anne notices the front of my shorts.

“Jesus Christ! Take it out so we can see it nuh?”

“You have to watch out for the big people, mi will show it to Peter-Gay if she takes off her panty and show me down there.”

Peter-Gay is taking off her panties, I’m pulling down my shorts. Her panties are at her ankles. I reach out to touch her down there. She slaps my hand.

“Where is yours?”

I start removing my white fruit of the loom briefs. I can’t believe she’s going to let me see her downstairs parts. I’ve peeked at them before when they take a shower. But now she’s going to let me see everything. My little teapot is now a big teapot.

“Jesus Christ! Where did a little child like you get that thing from? I wouldn’t want to meet you when you become an adult, you will be killing women with that weapon. Ruth-Anne, come here. Come look at this!

“Jeeeeezas father! Peter-Gay, can you believe this?”

“Steve, you want to do the thing?”

“With you and Ruth-Anne?”

“But how you so greedy? No, wid me.”

I really want to do the thing with Ruth-Anne. She’s pretty, black like tar, with meat on her body. She has a small nose and a nice round bottom. Peter-Gay is too skinny and ugly even though she’s a fair skin girl.

“For true?”

“Yes, tomorrow.”

Sister Rose is coming up the stairs. We can hear singing, ‘Onward Christian Soldiers Marching As To War.’ I pull up my shorts. What am I going to do with my teapot? It’s still standing up. I put my hands in my pockets. Peter-Gay pretends to help me with school work.

“Two times eight?”

“Seventeen”

“No, sixteen. You know the answer, but yu just not concentratin.’

Sister Rose is in her room next to ours.

“You helping that lazy boy with his homework? All he likes to do is play. Play play play, that’s all Steve likes to do.

Next day, Peter-Gay and I are under the house. We are going to do it under the house. It’s dark, it’s dusty. There is cardboard on the ground.The cat is under here with her kittens. We scare her. She starts to carry them in her mouth. I’m even more nervous than I was yesterday. If the church sisters catch us, they will crucify us. I know the word crucify. That’s what they did to Jesus.

“Put it in nuh?”

“Put it in where?”

“Right here so.”

I can’t find the hole. Peter-Gay helps me.

“Right there, just put it in.” Peter-Gay pulls my butt toward her. Jesus Christ! Lord God! I shouldn’t take God’s name in vain, I will go to hell. It feels good. It’s the bestest feeling I ever had. Scorpions and centipedes live under here. Usually I am very very afraid of them. Not today. Today is the best day of my life.

When I see dogs doing it on the street, I always wonder what it feels like. It feels like I’m in warm jello. I don’t want to kill myself anymore. I want to do this for the rest of my life.

“Move up and down. Hurry up. Move like you have some life in yu.”

“Alright, we have to stop now before somebody catch we.”

“Wait nuh?”

“No we have to stop now. Somebody will catch we.”

I don’t want to stop, this is the most enjoyable thing I’ve done in all my 7 years.

Peter-Gay pushes me off her.

“We have to stop now. Is kill you want them to kill we? Next week we do it again.”

I’m 7 years old, next week will take a year to come.

“I will go out first and see if there’s anybody there.”

Peter-Gay crawls through the opening we came through. Sister Davis is there.

“Peter-Gay what are you doing under the house?”

“I went to get my ball, but a couldn’t find it.”

“Yes, we need to cover those openings with some mesh so that your ball doesn’t keep going under there.”

I’m waiting for the all clear signal from Peter-Gay.

“Come out now, hurry up.”

I rush out and brush myself off. I don’t want to do anymore school work, I don’t want to go to any more church services; no more Sunday school, no more young people’s meetings, prayer meetings. I just want to do the thing everyday. I want to do it with the church sisters. Not all of them, some of them are old. Jesus, if they know what I am thinking, they will murder me. I want to do it with women in the street, with my friends’ mothers, with my friends’ sisters. How come my friends don’t want to do it with their sisters? I wish I had a sister, I would do it with her everyday. I can’t get it out of my head. I’m always thinking about doing it.

Maybe, I can do it with the cat. One day I’m home from school, sick with fever.

“Come ‘ere kitty.”

“Where is the hole?” (trying to remove my pants)

“OOOuuch! Kitty scratch me.

In a few weeks I start to feel something in my teapot.

“Mummy, my teapot scratching me.”

“I will have to take you to children’s.”

“No mummy, I don’t want to go.”

I hate children’s hospital. I go there all the time. I’m always sick. Last time I went there was the worst. I was 6. Peter-Gay was picking some soursop leaves to make tea. I put my hand up her dress and touch her downstairs parts then run. She got angry and chased me. I ran fast fast fast to get away, I turn around to see how close she is, but she stop. When I turn back around to look in front of me, the church wall is right in front of me. I stretched out my hands. My left wrist is broken. Laying on a bed at Children’s Hospital, two doctors hold down my legs, one doctor hold down my right arm and mummy holds down my body, while two doctors pull my left wrist back into socket.

“ Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooo! Mummy why you letting them do this to me?

“We know it hurts, but this is the only way we can get your wrist back into socket. It not going to take long.”

That’s why I never want to see children’s hospital again.

“Look, don’t start with your foolishness. We are going to Children’s Hospital.”

The doctor gives mommy a light brown liquid in a pepsi bottle with a cork.

“It is very important that you pull back the little boys foreskin and wash beneath it everyday. I think that is the cause of this problem.”

“Yes doctor. Yu hear that Steve. No matter how much it hurts, we have to wash under your foreskin, eeeeeeeeeeeeveryday when you bathe. Thank you doctor.”

I don’t like it when mommy pulls back my foreskin, it hurts. It really hurts. I don’t care about pulling back my foreskin when I bathe, I just want to do the thing, or look at Ms. Chamber’s National Geographic magazines. Ms. Chambers is not a Christian. She wears pants, she wears make up and she creams her hair. She is the only person with a TV in the area. I see her in her nightgown when she lets people from the neighbourhood watch TV from her window. The next person I want to do the thing with is her.